Edgar

Thank you very much for your feedback, @pcaetano! Good to know that it worked for you as well! 🙂 P.S.: Mine are still working with my Toshiba 16 TB hard disk (which originally caused the failure). So it's a lasting fix with these ICs, apparently.

Dear Armbian Community! I've run into the same issue and this thread put me on the right track. I've managed to resolve it meanwhile and I want to share my case with you here. I've used my Odroid HC4 with one Toshiba 14 TB harddrive for a while without any issues (> 1 year). Recently I purchased a Thoshiba 16 TB HDD and replaced the 14 TB with it. It run a couple of days without an issue. Then, after I updated and rebooted my Nextcloud Pi installation, the drive was not recognized anymore. I cannot remember the exact order of my subsequent steps, but since I own a 2nd HC4 hardware, I once swaped the slots, another time the whole HC4. After that I ended with on dead drive slot on one, and with two dead slots on the other HC4. I downloaded the schematics and measured the output test points of the switching regulator circuits. At each defective drive slot 0V were present at the output of the regulator circuit. Therefore I concluded defective DC-DC converter ICs as well (my current guess is, that the larger Toshiba drives, namely the 16 and 18 TB ones have some sort of higher inrush current at spin up / system reboot. Maybe out of SATA spec, or maybe the HC4's regulators are just a little too weakly dimensioned) I looked for a fully compatible converter IC, but with better specs. And fortunately I've found one. Altough with the same max current of 2 amps, but with a mentioned 2.5 amps peak current rating. And the max input voltage is higher as well - 24V vs. 18V. This tells the professional or the ambitious hobbyist that a stronger switching FET is integrated in this IC. I ordered them here https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/DIOO-Microcircuits/DIO6912ST6?qs=%2BEew9%2B0nqrDv2h%2BRFnw9pw%3D%3D and replaced both in each of my HC4s. It's been working for a few days now with the same 16 TB Toshiba hard drive. Hopefully for a long time. (2 photos attached - 1st shows the desoldered converter ICs U24,U21, 2nd the new soldered ICs - you have to be very careful not to accidentally unsolder the tiny passive components very close by)